Posts
17 Apr 2025
Efficient Backup Strategies with BorgBackup and Amazon S3
Efficient Backup Strategies with BorgBackup and Amazon S3 As organizations increasingly rely on cloud solutions for data storage and management, ensuring that backup strategies are efficient, reliable, and scalable has never been more critical. One of the effective ways to achieve this is by integrating BorgBackup (Borg) with Amazon S3. This article outlines the steps required to set up Borg to backup data efficiently to S3, providing a resilient solution for data protection.
26 Feb 2025
Monitoring Kubernetes Clusters Using Prometheus
In the rapidly evolving world of cloud-native applications, Kubernetes has emerged as the de facto standard for container orchestration. As organizations increasingly rely on Kubernetes to manage their applications, the need for robust monitoring solutions becomes paramount. Prometheus, an open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit, has gained popularity for its powerful capabilities in monitoring Kubernetes clusters. In this article, we will explore how to effectively monitor a Kubernetes cluster using Prometheus.
26 Feb 2025
Implementing Google OAuth in Grafana
Grafana is a powerful open-source platform for monitoring and observability, widely used for visualizing time-series data. One of the key aspects of managing a Grafana instance is ensuring secure access to its dashboards. Implementing OAuth authentication is a robust way to enhance security, and Google OAuth is a popular choice due to its widespread use and reliability. In this article, we’ll walk through the steps to integrate Google OAuth with Grafana.
26 Feb 2025
Implementing Health Checks in Nomad: A Comprehensive Guide
HashiCorp Nomad is a flexible, enterprise-grade workload orchestrator that can deploy applications across multiple regions and clouds. One of the critical aspects of maintaining a healthy and resilient infrastructure is implementing effective health checks. Health checks ensure that your services are running as expected and can automatically restart or reschedule tasks that fail. In this article, we will explore how to implement health checks in Nomad, ensuring your applications remain robust and reliable.
26 Feb 2025
Observability of Kubernetes Clusters: A Comprehensive Guide
In the rapidly evolving world of cloud-native applications, Kubernetes has emerged as the de facto standard for container orchestration. However, managing and maintaining a Kubernetes cluster can be challenging, especially when it comes to understanding the system’s health and performance. This is where observability comes into play. Observability is not just about monitoring; it’s about gaining deep insights into the system’s behavior, performance, and health. In this article, we’ll explore the key components of observability in Kubernetes clusters and introduce some open-source tools that can help you achieve it.
7 Feb 2025
Monitoring SSL Certificate Expiry with Prometheus
In today’s digital landscape, ensuring the security of your web applications is paramount. One critical aspect of this security is the management of SSL/TLS certificates. Expired certificates can lead to service disruptions and can compromise the trustworthiness of your applications. To prevent such scenarios, it’s essential to have a robust monitoring system in place. Prometheus, a leading open-source monitoring solution, can be effectively used to track SSL certificate expiry dates and alert you before they expire.
7 Feb 2025
Open Source Tools for Monitoring Expired TLS Certificates
In today’s digital landscape, ensuring the security and integrity of data transmission is paramount. Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates play a crucial role in securing communications over the internet. However, managing and monitoring these certificates can be challenging, especially when it comes to preventing expired certificates, which can lead to service disruptions and security vulnerabilities. Fortunately, there are several open-source tools available that can help automate the monitoring of TLS certificates and alert you before they expire.
2 Feb 2025
Making Local Backups Using rsnapshot
In the world of DevOps and system administration, ensuring data integrity and availability is paramount. One of the most efficient ways to safeguard your data is by implementing a robust backup strategy. While there are numerous tools available for this purpose, rsnapshot stands out as a powerful, open-source solution for creating local backups. In this article, we’ll explore how to set up and use rsnapshot to automate your backup processes effectively.
2 Feb 2025
Defining a Custom Port for Rsnapshot Backup
Rsnapshot is a powerful filesystem snapshot utility for making backups of local and remote systems. It leverages rsync and hard links to create efficient and space-saving backups. By default, rsnapshot uses SSH to connect to remote systems, which typically operates over port 22. However, there are scenarios where you might need to define a custom port for SSH connections, such as when the remote server is configured to use a non-standard port for security reasons.
29 Jan 2025
Getting Started with the Falco Project: A Beginner's Guide
In the ever-evolving landscape of DevOps and cloud-native applications, security remains a top priority. As organizations increasingly adopt containerized environments, the need for robust security tools becomes paramount. Enter Falco, an open-source project originally created by Sysdig, designed to monitor and detect anomalous activity in your applications and infrastructure. In this article, we’ll explore the basics of using the Falco project to enhance your security posture. What is Falco? Falco is a cloud-native runtime security tool that detects unexpected behavior in your applications.
26 Jan 2025
Running a Factorio Server Using Docker
Factorio, a popular real-time strategy game focused on resource management and automation, has captured the hearts of many gamers. Hosting your own Factorio server can enhance your gaming experience by allowing you to play with friends or a community. Docker, a powerful containerization tool, simplifies the process of setting up and managing a Factorio server. This article will guide you through the steps to run a Factorio server using Docker.
24 Jan 2025
Monitoring TLS Certificates with Uptime Kuma
In the realm of DevOps, ensuring the availability and security of your services is paramount. One critical aspect of this is monitoring TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificates, which are essential for securing communications over networks. Expired or misconfigured certificates can lead to service disruptions and security vulnerabilities. Uptime Kuma, an open-source monitoring tool, offers a straightforward way to keep an eye on your TLS certificates. In this article, we’ll explore how to set up and use Uptime Kuma for TLS certificate monitoring.
23 Jan 2025
Migrating Issue Boards from One GitLab Instance to Another
Migrating issue boards from one GitLab instance to another can be a daunting task, especially when dealing with multiple projects and complex board configurations. However, with the right approach and tools, this process can be streamlined and automated to minimize downtime and ensure data integrity. In this article, we will explore a step-by-step guide to effectively migrate issue boards between GitLab instances. Understanding GitLab Issue Boards GitLab issue boards are a powerful feature that allows teams to manage their workflow using a visual interface.
23 Jan 2025
Optimizing Docker Compose for Hosting a GitLab Instance
Hosting a GitLab instance using Docker Compose is a popular choice for many organizations looking to leverage the power of containerization for their DevOps needs. However, to ensure optimal performance and resource utilization, it’s crucial to optimize your Docker Compose file. This article will guide you through best practices and tips to enhance your GitLab deployment using Docker Compose. 1. Use Specific Image Tags When defining the GitLab service in your docker-compose.
23 Jan 2025
How to Backup a Self-Hosted GitLab Instance
Backing up a self-hosted GitLab instance is a crucial task for ensuring data integrity and availability. Whether you’re running GitLab for a small team or a large enterprise, having a reliable backup strategy can save you from data loss due to hardware failures, accidental deletions, or other unforeseen events. In this article, we’ll explore how to effectively back up your GitLab instance using built-in tools and best practices. Why Backup Your GitLab Instance?
23 Jan 2025
How to Backup a Self-Hosted GitLab Instance in Docker
In the world of DevOps, ensuring the safety and availability of your data is paramount. For those using a self-hosted GitLab instance running in Docker, setting up a reliable backup strategy is crucial. This article will guide you through the process of backing up your GitLab instance to safeguard your repositories, configurations, and other critical data. Why Backup Your GitLab Instance? GitLab is a powerful tool for managing repositories, CI/CD pipelines, and more.
23 Jan 2025
How to Delete All Issues from a GitLab Project Using the GitLab API
Managing issues in GitLab can become cumbersome, especially when you need to delete a large number of them. While GitLab’s web interface allows for individual issue deletion, it lacks a bulk delete feature. Fortunately, the GitLab API provides a powerful way to automate this task. In this article, we’ll walk through the process of using the GitLab API to delete all issues from a project. Prerequisites Before you begin, ensure you have the following:
23 Jan 2025
How to Check DNS Propagation Using Online Services
DNS propagation is a crucial aspect of managing web services and domains. When you make changes to your DNS records, such as updating an A record or changing your nameservers, these changes need to propagate across the internet. This process can take anywhere from a few minutes to 48 hours, depending on various factors like TTL (Time to Live) settings and the caching behavior of DNS servers worldwide. Understanding and checking DNS propagation is essential for ensuring that your changes have been successfully applied and are visible to users globally.
23 Jan 2025
How to Check DNS Propagation Using CLI
DNS propagation is a critical aspect of managing domain names and ensuring that changes to DNS records are reflected across the internet. When you update DNS records, it can take some time for these changes to propagate to all DNS servers worldwide. As a DevOps engineer, it’s essential to verify DNS propagation to ensure that your services are accessible and functioning correctly. In this article, we’ll explore how to check DNS propagation using command-line interface (CLI) tools, focusing on open-source solutions.
23 Jan 2025
Migrating Labels Between GitLab Instances: A Step-by-Step Guide
Migrating labels between GitLab instances can be a daunting task, especially when dealing with numerous projects. Labels are crucial for organizing issues and merge requests, and ensuring they are consistent across instances is essential for maintaining workflow efficiency. This article will guide you through the process of migrating labels from one GitLab instance to another using GitLab’s API and a simple Python script. Prerequisites Before you begin, ensure you have the following: